Responsible Innovation Management in Profit‐Driven Firms : A Cross‐Cultural Analysis in Germany, India, and Japan

Kurzfassung/Abstract

Responsible innovation (RI) challenges profit‐driven firms to reconcile market pressures with societal and environmental responsibilities. We ask how firms integrate anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness (ARIR) into responsible innovation management (RIM), and how national context and cultural dimensions shape the degree and form of RIM. Using inductive grounded theory, we conducted 60 semi‐structured interviews with innovation managers and senior decision makers in multinational firms in Germany, India, and Japan. We develop a culturally anchored conceptual model in which external environments shape national dominant innovation foci, and both national innovation focus and cultural values act as antecedents of ARIR enactment, with top management's RI advocacy amplifying integration when responsibility is not institutionally dominant. Cross‐national comparisons reveal pillar‐specific patterns. German firms show broad ARIR alignment across all four pillars. Japanese firms exhibit a high degree of ARIR integration, but a form of RIM in which governance emphasis falls on anticipation, reflexivity, and inclusion, with responsiveness less developed as a proactive routine. Indian firms exhibit more variable alignment that strengthens when top management champions RI. By theorizing RIM as a process‐centric, variance‐sensitive construct and explaining its cultural contingencies, the study advances innovation management research on how firms institutionalize RI under persistent economic‐responsibility tensions.

Managerial Summary:
Innovating responsibly is difficult when speed, cost, and growth dominate. We interviewed 60 innovation managers and top‐level decision makers in large multinational firms in Germany, India, and Japan to learn how companies build responsibility into everyday innovation decisions. We found four repeatable practices: looking ahead to likely impacts, pausing to question assumptions, involving affected stakeholders early, and changing course when new risks or expectations emerge. National context matters. In Germany, regulation and sustainability expectations support all four practices. In Japan, companies are strong at planning ahead, reflecting on their practices, and coordinating with stakeholders. However, the routines for adjusting course when new societal or environmental concerns emerge are less well established. In India, cost and time pressure often limit these practices unless senior leaders actively champion responsible innovation and embed it in goals, policies, and investment decisions. For managers in large multinational for‐profit firms and policymakers, the message is to make responsibility a routine part of how innovation decisions are made, tailor it to local expectations, cultivate top management advocacy for responsible innovation, and give teams the authority, time, and resources to act on concerns early and to stop, redesign, or redirect projects when needed.